This invention relates to improvements in electronic musical instruments to be played as an input to a music synthesizer and more particularly to an instrument which may simulate some aspects of operation of a stringed instrument such as a guitar.
In the art of electronic music and musical instruments many input devices are now essentially digital switching devices and operate in conjunction with a type of standardized digital interface called a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) which connects to a music synthesizer. Current synthesizers are extremely versatile; many produce tones similar to several musical instruments. Some can reproduce almost any sound through electronically recorded sampling or create new sounds. Because of the modular nature of the synthesizer voice modules it is not necessary for such input devices themselves to include tone generators or other sound generating means. They only need to produce a digital output which is compatible with the MIDI specification.
There have been many attempts to produce electronic musical instruments which simulate, to greater or less degree, the operation of an acoustic guitar. A number of the patents showing such devices include internal tone generators. One such patent which also substitutes keys on the fingerboard for the strings, but which places a key at each string/fret location, is Gasser U.S. Pat. No. 3,555,166. By this is meant that each of the six strings is located over a number of frets such as 20. An acoustic guitar is played by holding a particular string down against the fingerboard between particular fret positions and picking the string to produce a given note. In the electronic instrument described, a key is placed at each such string/fret position, resulting in six rows or columns of keys, each having 20 keys (or more) in each row, or 120 keys.
Other electronic guitar-like instruments are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,336,734; 4,570,521; RE 31,019; 4,570,521; and 4,630,520, some of which incorporate strings. Frequently, such instruments incorporate additional switching means placed on the body for various purposes such as making chords, tuning, and expression and modulation information for the synthesizer.
Although some of the prior art patents emphasize various means employed to make such instruments convenient and accessible to one used to playing an acoustic guitar, applicant's experience with at least some of such instruments is that they tend to impose some of their own difficulties and obstacles. At the same time, some such instruments fail to adequately utilize the potential that current technology makes possible for expanding the capabilities of the instrument.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument for use with a synthesizer offering fretboard technique similar to a stringed guitar but which affords greater flexibility and ease in fingering to produce many additional chords and note combinations and, in particular, makes it possible to play simultaneously, a plurality of notes along a single row of keys (string position).
It is another object of the present invention to provide a keyboard instrument meeting the above objective while providing a simplified and reliable keyboard structure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a keyboard instrument meeting the above objectives and which includes circuit means providing extremely fast response to actuation of any fret on the keyboard.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a keyboard instrument meeting the above objectives and in which through the use of a simplified structure, the keys are truly consistent and reliably touch sensitive, i.e. the electrical output from each key depression varies consistently with the pressure on the key and which output is sustained with sustained key pressure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument incorporating its own signal processor which is compatible with standard MIDI connection devices to a synthesizer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument in which adjacent rows of keys are musically related by a specific musical interval such as a third or a fourth, which interval is programmable. This type of programmability is extended to each note individually by on-board software which can relate a table of values to each key.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument which meets the above objectives, but which includes a substantially greater number of rows of keys than would be required to represent strings of the usual acoustic guitar.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument which meets the above objectives and allows the active sensing of and responding to any key in a two-dimensional matrix of keys at any time during a musical performance.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electronic keyboard instrument which meets the above objectives and in which the keys are combined with a short string section to enhance the guitar-like feel of the instrument.
It is a still further objective of the present invention to provide a keyboard instrument meeting the above objectives and in which a chord memory feature is included permitting a substantial number of notes to be retained in memory and played as a chord with a single stroke.
It is a still further objective of the present invention to provide a keyboard instrument meeting the above objectives and in which selected rectangular areas of the fingerboard may be assigned selected responses such as piano sound, violin sound, transpositions, or selected MIDI channels with patch numbers.